when we push the candles together-” all three stranniks leaned forward to do so-“their flames merge into one, intermingled and indivisible, and yet after all, still three flames for all of that.”
Svarozic reverently stroked the triune flame with his forefinger, and then kissed the new blister that arose on its tip.
“Your metaphor is comprehensible,” said Koschei, “and therefore it is not ineffable, and therefore it does not describe God. If one were to say that the flame comprises spirit and essence and being, one would come closer to the truth, for the mind can intuit that the words contain some meaning, but not what that meaning might be. Such is the majesty of the One, and the simplicity of the Three.” Then, without looking away from the flame, “Are your errands run, Arkady? Then come join us.”
There were no empty chairs in the room, so Arkady crouched on the floor by Koschei’s feet, like a dog. He joined the others in staring into the conjoined candle flame. He was not sure whether or not it was still supposed to represent God, nor what thoughts it was supposed to engender in him. He waited, but apparently the stranniks had said all they felt was necessary and were contemplating the ramifications of their wisdom. Finally, as in a trance, he heard his own voice break the silence, asking the question that had been much bothering him of late:
“Holy pilgrim, exactly what is the Eschaton? You have explained it to me, but not in terms I can understand.”
“You ask a difficult question, my young acolyte, and thus a worthy one.” Koschei rubbed Arkady’s head familiarly. “How best to put it? Ah! There is an ancient theory of ontology called ‘relativity.’ This wisdom I learned from the mad souls and spirits of rage who dwell within the tangled metal webs and nets of the underworld.”
“You took spiritual lessons from demons?”
“Demons cannot create-only God has that power. Similarly, they cannot lie.”
“They cannot even lie to themselves,” Chernobog added. “In this way, they show how inhuman they are. But they can put an evil interpretation on the truth. An apple is always an apple. But to Satan, it was created not for nourishment but as a temptation to draw Eve to sin. They cannot deny that sex is pleasurable. So they say that pleasure is evil. And so on.”
Koschei nodded. “Knowing this, a wise man can find wisdom even in the mouths of demons. One must only subtract their interpretation. So: According to the ancients, God is omnipresent and eternal. His omnipresence we call space and his endurance time, and this space-time we call the universe. Now, the universe is made up entirely of energy and matter. Seemingly, these are two separate things, but in truth each is an aspect of the other. If you were to speed up matter so that it went as fast as the speed of light, it would turn into energy.”
“You mean like an explosion?”
“Oh yes, there would be an explosion, greater than anything known to the current age. But that would be the least of it. Matter, being fallen, aspires to the higher state of energy. It wants to shed its gross state and become pure spirit.”
“The stars are all in the process of becoming spirit,” Chernobog amplified. “Some are so far distant that nothing of them remains but their light, spreading forever throughout the universe, and these we call angels.”
Svarozic mimed applause.
“As matter accelerates, however, time slows down for it, and its mass increases. The more mass it has, the more energy required to accelerate it. Thus, as matter approaches the speed of light, the energy required to bring it to that happy point where physicality is left behind and a soul may enter Heaven is infinite. And where is the only possible source of infinite energy?”
All three stranniks looked at Arkady expectantly. In the tiniest of voices, he said, “God?”
“Exactly. Tomorrow, the least fraction of the Divine will touch the city and all within its light will be transformed into pure spirit. Like…” Koschei looked around. “I need a sheet of paper.”
Svarozic drew a pocket missal from his robes and, opening it at random, tore out a page.
Koschei accepted the page and held it horizontally before him. “Imagine this sheet of paper is Moscow. Imagine that the candle-flame represents God. It does not, of course, but pretend. Tomorrow, the two will touch. Like so.” Delicately, he lowered the paper over the candle. A brown spot appeared in its center. Then it went up in flame. “You see?”
Arkady blinked. “You cannot mean this literally.”
“Yes, quite literally. Oh, to the sinful, there will be a worldly, rational explanation. Because God is forever lying to us, in order to test our faith. He creates fossils, for example, to tempt us to fall into the heresy of evolution. He creates injustice, so that we will doubt that everything turns out for the best. He kills off loved ones, so that we might fall into the error of mourning their loss. So to the secularists, it will look like a great fire is consuming the city. There will be a rational explanation-perhaps a cow will kick over a lantern, or a reformer will attempt to force the government to build new housing for the poor by torching the slums. There is an army forming up beneath the city which will emerge sometime tonight, and perhaps that will be the ostensible cause. But those who know will recognize it as the work of God.”
“An army?” Arkady asked, mystified.
“An army or the beginnings of one. There are powers which hate humanity, and they are resolved to destroy Moscow tonight.”
“Nor will it end there,” Chernobog said.
“Nor will it end there. The survivors will carry the sacred flame with them, out into Muscovy, into Russia, into the world!”
“Everybody will die?”
“Yes. But thanks to your hard work, most of Moscow will be filled with the divine spark of rasputin. Briefly, its citizens will be in a state of perfect grace. Now, man being a sinful brute, almost all will rapidly fall from that grace once the rasputin leaves their bloodstreams. But, to their great good fortune, the flames will reach them first and they’ll die in a state of grace. Which is all that God really cares about.”
“No,” Arkady said.
“Yes.” Koschei sounded genuinely amused. “The details He leaves to underlings.”
“You talk about armies and death and setting fire to Moscow, and then you claim it’s what God wants?” Arkady said with growing anger. “How do you know what God wants?”
“You don’t believe I know?”
“No. I don’t.”
“Well, if you don’t believe me, you can always ask Him yourself.” Smiling benignly, Koschei held out his hand. In it was a vial of rasputin.
“Madness and buggery!” Arkady swore in an agony of enlightenment. He saw it all now, and the sight made him want to tear out his eyes with his own hands. “You are not the holy man I believed you to be! You are an agent of the Devil himself, and your drug leads not to Paradise but to the slippery slopes of Hell. Well, I shall stop you. I swear I will. Mark my words.”
“Stop me?” Koschei’s eyes shone with benevolent love, even as his tone turned stern and scornful. “You think I would have given a young mooncalf like you the means to thwart the will of God? I have told you as much as I have only because it is already too late to stop anything.”
“Far, far, far too late,” Chernobog amplified.
Svarozic leaned back in his chair and kicked his feet in soundless laughter.
With a cry of despair, Arkady fled from the room, from Koschei, from his past, from all he had ever been or was or aspired to be.
Down the canted hotel hallways and out onto the reeling streets he ran. Blindly he fled through dark buildings that crested and fell with each staggering step he took. What to do? He had betrayed his new city and government. He was a traitor to all humanity! He was a new Judas, a villain beyond all possible redemption!
There was only one possible solution. He must warn the Duke of Muscovy.
…12…
Kyril woke up feeling optimistic and scowled. He had never in his life had anything to feel optimistic about, so naturally he distrusted this feeling. Kicking off the gunnysack he’d been using for a blanket, he crawled out from
